Bears Ride Wozny’s Arm & Bat Over Southold

April 27, 2018

Yesterday afternoon the baseball team split their season series with Southold in a 7-3 victory, moving within two games of their first playoff berth since 1999.

After Joe Wozny pitched a scoreless first inning, the Bears jumped on the board with a pair of runs in the bottom half. Seamus Scanlon connected on a lead off single, Wozny follow with a double and David Choi brought in the Bears’ first run on an infield single. Jack Derco followed with a sac fly to shallow right that plated Wozny for a 2-0 lead.

The Bears added a third run in the bottom of the second when another Wozny double scored Chris Swiatek, who walked. A passed ball in the bottom of the third scored Choi who reached on an error as the Brook took a 4-0 edge. Southold got on the board in the top of the fourth on a two-out steal of home, but the Bears responded in a big way in their half of the fourth.

Scanlon reach base to lead off the inning after getting hit by a pitch. Mega followed with a line drive up the middle to bring up Wozny. In the first inning Wozny’s double went to the left field warning track, but this time around he got barreled every inch of the pitch, sending it over the left field wall for a three-run home run and a commanding 7-1 lead. After his heroics at the plate, the UConn-bound righty threw eight pitches in the top of the fifth to keep the Settlers at bay. He followed with a scoreless sixth, but reached his 105-pitch limit on the last batter, ending his day with 8 strikeouts while yielding just 2 hits and an earned run.

After the Bears failed to tack on a run in the bottom of the sixth, they moved within three outs of nailing down a key victory. Southold promptly loaded the bases on a single and two walks and Dan Rueda was called on to pitch the Brook out of a mess. He walked his first batter to force in a run, but answered with a huge strikeout in the next at bat. A single followed that cut Southold’s deficit to 7-3, but a relay from right field that went down the line from Swiatek, to Wozny, to Mega gunned down a Settler at the plate for a huge second out. Rueda closed out the win with a 1-3 ground out.

Wozny finished with 3 hits and 4 RBIs, while Choi and Derco each recorded an RBI. Aidan Mega added a hit to keep his team-leading batting average at .590.

The win gave the Bears 8 on the season, their most since the 1999 squad went 12-8 and won the Long Island Championship. At 8-5 they are currently second in the League IX standings. They are scheduled to take the field tomorrow afternoon in a home match-up with Port Jeff, though today’s rain may push the game to next week.